2380 North Central Expressway
Plano, TX 75074
(972) 881-8819
We almost drove into the new Kobe Teppan & Sushi parking lot a couple of weeks ago in our excursion to Zenna, but I was determined to have my Thai and so decided to try Kobe later.
Yesterday, I met hubby for dinner at Kobe. Walking in, I was confronted by a room-high aquarium with a small assortment of colorful, exotic fish swimming placidly about. Being a weekday, I peeked into the darkwood-framed dining area and saw a few parties enjoying their hibachi meals. Looks like Kobe is positioning themselves to impress and attract business parties and family gatherings…their hibachi tables looked brand new and comfy.
We opted to go for sushi; Kobe separates their sushi diners from the hibachi room with a short hallway, which leads to an area no less well-appointed than the rest of the establishment. Everything had a shiny new veneer, imparting a sense of upscale comfort without being too ostentatious. Even the large-screen plasma TVs were few and unobtrusive; Kobe wisely employs mirrored walls to entertain diners from additional angles.
On to the menu. Our hostess handed us our menus, and to be honest, it had the standard Japanese fare that most restaurants had…lunch bentos, appetizers like tuna tadaki and assorted tempura, teriyaki, chicken/pork katsu, unagi rice bowls, and the ubiquitous sushi boats. At first, hubby leaned toward getting a boat ($75-$85 a selection), but I persuaded him to go for our regular favorites on the paper menu, which he obliged. And I’m sure glad we did.
Hubby ordered two types of eel rolls, Eel Avocado and the Dragon Roll. He also ordered a house roll with 4 different kinds of sashimi wrapped in cucumber and floating on a ponzu-like sauce (the name of it escapes me) which he devoured hungrily. We also asked for their Mango roll, salmon sashimi and of course, mackerel (saba) nigiri. In addition, we sampled their Baked Mussel appetizer (excellent) and ordered an Unagi bowl from their a la carte menu.
Their rolls proved to be surprisingly fresh and well prepared. The Dragon impressed us with its enormous chunks of eel, the Eel avocado also proved tasty. The mango roll was the only disappointment as it seemed too dry and lacking the flavor and substance of the fruit that I was looking for (i.e. too much like buffet sushi). Again, hubby expressed approval of all of the rolls he ordered, which disappeared rather quickly.
A service snafu happened at the beginning of the meal when our server brought out a Tuna tadaki that we did not order. Another server had to come out and verify that we hadn’t ordered it at all. We later realized how the confusion came about after we paid for our meal: somehow our server had mixed up her letters and never brought out the unagi bowl that I had ordered. Which I was glad didn’t materialize, since the Dragon and Eel rolls proved to be enough eel for one night.
I’m hoping Kobe will succeed here on the Plano corridor, despite the competition up and down the strip from other sushi joints. I learned after Googling up the restaurant that Kobe has outposts in Arizona and California. So maybe success here will extend their reach. Kobe may be attempting to court the large gatherings with their attractive teppanyaki (hibachi) rooms. Plano doesn’t have many hibachi options that I’m aware of, so here’s to hoping they’ll be successful due to their expressway location and setup. I’m looking forward to trying out their hibachi in the future.
